AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re blaming it on me without any kind of evidence to back it up. What’s the difference?”
“I didn’t blame you. I was just asking. And Liv didn’t say anything.”
“Neither did I.”
They stared at each other, neither of them moving or looking away. Finally Alice unclenched her fists. “Goodbye, Alex.”
Not so long, not we’ll talk about it later. Just goodbye. So flat, so final. It was like the spoken version of hanging up on someone. She wasn’t giving him any wiggle room to get around it.
She turned and walked down the hall out of sight, her soft footfalls echoing even when he could no longer see her. Then those too were gone, and he was left alone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She knew better than to watch the games.
Yet she sat on the couch with Kevin’s feet in her lap—one leg still in a cast—and the Felons game up on the TV. It had become a habit for her, Olivia and Kevin to sit in front of the big-screen once or twice a week and watch the Felons take on whichever team they were facing at the time. Liv would get excited whenever Alex got to bat, reminding Kevin she knew him.
For some reason the games kept Kevin mellow. He’d never been much of a baseball fan before, but something about watching the sport now acted as a balm. It was nice to see him engaging and doing something other than spending all day in his room. He actually stayed awake the entire three hours, and getting to spend that time with him was worth it to Alice.
Instead of telling Kevin about her final fight with Alex, she’d let him believe the relationship had come apart naturally as a result of distance. Alice knew how much Kevin loathed Matt—made worse now by the knowledge Matt had paid for his hospital bills—and she didn’t want to bring on that level of animosity towards Alex as well. She didn’t even know if Alex had spread the story, and the more she thought about it the less she believed it was possible. The last thing Kevin needed was to harbor a pointless vendetta. It wasn’t good for him, or for any of them, to have his focus shifted in such a toxic way.
Healing was the number-one priority for her family now, and if that meant Alice had to overlook her own heart for the good of those she loved, she would watch Felons games and pretend it didn’t break her up inside.
On screen the Yankees were up to bat, and the announcer reminded them for the seventh time how Tucker Lloyd had pitched a perfect game against the team the previous season. There was much speculation as to whether or not he could do it again.
Alice huffed.
Of course he couldn’t do it again. The odds of a pitcher throwing two perfect games in two years against the same team were about the same as her winning the lottery. Tucker was good, she wasn’t arguing that, but it drove her mental when sportscasters felt the need to create dramatic hope for something that was never going to happen.
The third batter up put all the silly discussion to an end by hitting a left field double.
Behind the plate, Alex made his call for a curveball and hopped up, so spry on his feet he seemed made for a low crouch, like an animal ready to spring into action.
Alice tried to pay attention to the game, but she was so fixated on Alex she only noticed the ball when it found a home in his glove. The camera would pan close, giving her ample opportunity to make out his eyes through the mask. His lashes were so dark and thick it was impossible for her to not stare. She remembered the perfect satisfaction of staring at him as he slept, those beautiful, almost too-long eyelashes resting on his cheeks.
The way his snug pants hugged his muscular thighs reminded her of other things she’d hoped to forget. Vivid memories of the feel of his body over hers triggered an erotic synapse flash, sending all her nerves into overdrive. She frowned at herself, wishing her body wasn’t hell-bent on holding on to those feelings.
So what if he’d made her come? It didn’t let him off the hook for getting her fired.
Try telling that to her nether regions though. One look at his legs and the tanned stretch of his bare forearms, and she was ready to have him throw her down and take her right on home plate, with the entire Felons stadium watching.
“I’m going to grab a soda. Anybody want anything while I’m up?” She patted Kevin’s legs so he would lift them off her. Pushing them from her lap would have been a dead giveaway she was trying to flee, plus one of them was broken, so it would be cruel and unusual.
“Chips,” Liv said, not moving her eyes from the screen.
Alice was about to counter with a healthier offer when Kevin said, “Actually, yeah, chips sound great. And maybe a Coke.”
She sighed, defeated before she could try to fight. Since Kevin had come home, and since his…incident, she found it hard to say no to him. She knew it wasn’t in his best interests to baby him, but at the same time she desperately wanted to make him happy. If chips and a Coke would make him happy, then she wasn’t going to turn him down. And she couldn’t very well park a bowl of chips in front of Kevin and deny them to Liv.
“Okay.”
In the kitchen she emptied a bag of BBQ chips into two bowls—a large one for her and Kevin, and a much smaller one for Liv—and brought out two canned drinks and a cardboard container of chocolate milk.
She did her best to avoid looking at the television while she doled out the goodies, but naturally that was the moment the announcers decided to discuss Alex Ross’s recent surge.
“I don’t know if it was the Florida air, Ken, but something certainly lit a fire under his tuccus. He’s been playing like a new man since he came back.”
“More accurately he’s been playing like he did last season, and that’s something this Felons offense was desperately needing. It’s nice to see them playing like the Fel
